Once this month is over… peace.
To be fair though, a lot of the craziness happening in my life right now is kind of my own doing, maybe?
I went to Coachella Weekend Two, and while there, I stopped by Vampire Weekend’s set. Granted, I couldn’t stay for very long because I had to go shoot Pretty Lights (by “shoot” I mean “take photos of”) (there’s got to be a better word for that) (photograph?, but it’s so formal) (ANYWAY)
but I did swing by the band’s very last song, and of course, of course, it was “Walcott.”
When I first listened to Vampire Weekend, surprise surprise, I didn’t like them. But then I listened to this song, and, along with “I Stand Corrected,” it changed my mind.
There’s something about the striking quality of the opening, and the way that the music and the lyrics are pitted against each other… the melody’s so upbeat, and there’s so much sparkle in the sound, but when you listen in closer, this song is about fleeing, and yeah yeah, I know that on the surface, this is a song about VW’s vampire short film, but
don’t you know that it’s insane
this is a song about escape
and to me, this is a song about someone who needed to escape
but can’t fathom life without those borders
or perhaps, even if he does, it’s always within a certain level of comfort and distraction and clarity
and the knowledge that he can come back home
or maybe, he’s here in “Cape Cod” because he knows that the alternative is the sort of uncertainty that can rip a person apart
or perhaps he just doesn’t care anymore, and there’s no drive behind anything he does, and even if he could make the escape that the singer wishes he would make
it wouldn’t be for the right reasons
and it wouldn’t lead to the right things
and the singer is left staring at Walcott’s shadow as he turns back to Cape Cod, to the familiar rush and boom of waves hitting breakers, to the same laughs and spites he’s carried since birth.
…
I’m not thinking about Walcott anymore. It’s strange, how long a shadow a ghost can cast…
(Image: by Chad Wys)
